1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates generally to the field of data processing for accounting data. Specifically presented are methods and systems for validating accounts in a general ledger chart of accounts using a web service.
2. Description of the Related Art
In accounting, a “general ledger” (GL) is one of the main financial records of a business. The general ledger includes more or less all of the accounts which are reported on the business' financial statements, such as cash, accounts payable, and expense accounts. Each ledger in the general ledger typically keeps a balance, or the running total of money, in each account for which the business wishes to track.
A “chart of accounts” is a collection of account names. Small businesses may wish to track a small number of accounts, but large businesses commonly wish to track hundreds or thousands of accounts. These accounts can correspond with different departments, organizations, or operational units within the business, as well as different product lines. Accounts can also correspond to different funds in educational or charitable institutions. With a large number of accounts tracked by very large enterprises, the chart of accounts can become unwieldy.
Large enterprises often employ complex financial systems to track accounting entries. Often times these complex financial systems are used as a master repository of the general ledger. For example, the complex financial systems, in which various accounts are viewed, added, or edited, effectively keep the chart of accounts that are valid for the enterprise. Enterprises may also employ other information technology systems that perform specialized tasks specific to the organization or perhaps the industry. In some examples, these specialized systems may need to reference the master data that is stored in an enterprise GL system. The specialized accounting systems may need to understand the values in the enterprise GL chart of accounts in order to produce valid accounting entries that will ultimately be booked into the enterprise GL system. Additionally, not only do the actual account values often need to be valid for many applications, but the combination of account, department, project, identification, etc. that make up an accounting entry should also be valid as well.
In some complex enterprise GL systems, there is a rule based engine that allows for combinations to be verified based on a series of rules, whereby all of the account combinations do not need to maintained explicitly such as in a repository table.
In many businesses the chart of accounts has been maintained manually in the external specialized systems, with a GL clerk performing dual entry for the initial setup of the chart of accounts as well as for the valid set of combinations. In some more advanced implementations of these systems, systems integrators have built customized solutions between the two systems to synchronize the master data in a more effective manner, reducing the burden of manual entry. However synchronizing the valid set of combinations that are derived by a rules based engine has proven to be very complex, and limitations or assumptions usually must be built into the integration for it to function properly.
These solutions are prone to problems with either the data becoming stale in one system, where a clerk updates a chart of account combination in the repository GL system, and has some delay to enter in the second, specialized system. Even more sophisticated systems that have customized solutions often employ constraints on the ability of the integration to use all aspects of the rules based engine. This effectively restricts the complexity of the rule setup allowed by the GL system, therefore removing delivered functionality. For example structures such as “trees” can be used to allow the rules based engine to determine valid account combinations. Yet in some integrations, trees may not be supported.